Around January 6, 1864

In this day and age, newspapers rarely print fiction. Of course, there is the occasional magical story written by a third grade class that appears every once a week in the Arts and Entertainment section of the paper, but for the most part, fictional stories of real substance are not published in newspapers anymore. This was not the case in the 1800's. Appearing in The Valley Star each week was...

The same article was printed twice (in the Charleston Mercury and the Southern Recorder) regarding the execution of a twenty-one year-old rebel spy named Samuel Davis. The actual execution took place on November 27, 1863 in Pulaski, Tennessee at 10 o'clock a.m. Davis had been captured on November 19, 1863 carrying dispatches and mail for to Union Gen. Braxton Bragg. These documents had been...

Ephraim E. Dodd was hung on January 8, 1864 in Knoxville, Tennessee. He was a rebel spy from Texas who had been working for Gen. Longstreet's army. He had used the name Williams' and had claimed to belong to the 3rd Tennessee. It seems that many people in Tennessee thought that this execution was justified because of all of the cold-blooded murder' that had taken place...

An article was printed in Brownlow's Knoxville Whig that discussed the enlistment of African-American soldiers into the Federal Army. The article claimed that a portion of the Federal Army was enlisting black soldiers because it would be a great insult and wrong to the South. However, this article also focuses on the issue of enlisting African-American soldiers into the Confederate Army, which...

In mid-1863, the Confederate Army and Confederate Congress decided that steps needed to be taken toward strengthening the Confederate Army. In a meeting with other Confederate officers in early January 1864, Gen. Cleburne suggested something that seemed like a logical and rational solution to the problem: enlist African-Americans into the Confederate Army. Out of this idea grew the proposal to...

Beginning in 1863, black communities began to hold large meetings to discuss the articulation and communication of new attitudes towards African-Americans. One such meeting was held in a black Baptist church in Memphis to commemorate the first anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. This meeting was one of the first of black convocations that called for social reforms among the black community...

On January 12, 1864, A.K. Tribble offered a testimony in a New Kent County courthouse concerning the death of a slave, Ephraim. After Tribble's sworn statements, the County Clerk affirmed the verity of his account, but added that he could not set the official seal of his office because the Union Army had stolen it.

It did not take long for North Carolina?s credit to drop to the level of the Confederate credit. Faced with the constant necessity to clothe its troops, North Carolina?s state debt continued to grow. Jonathan Worth faced an overwhelming task as North Carolina?s treasurer. Unable to reimburse the state for its expenditures, the Confederacy consequently produced a serious drain on North Carolina?s...

It was a chilly California night, the 11th of December in the year 1863, when suddenly, an explosion happened. It occurred in the home of Mrs. C (full name to be kept confidential), 8 miles from San Fransisco. It was a sudden explosion of a keg of blasting powder in which three of her children, two boys and one girl, endured the consequences. One of the boys died hours after the accident. According...

William T. Stockton was a confederate soldier serving in the Florida Militia during the Civil War, acting as the Major and Lieutenant Colonel for the 1st Florida Calvary Regiment. Before this, he had been elected mayor of Quincy, Florida several times, as well as being married and having 9 children with his wife Julia. He served honorably during the Civil War, even returning from a nasty facial...